


in aeternum, sister

by cherubique



Series: amicitia - when everyone lives [2]
Category: Oxenfree (Video Game)
Genre: Gen, Protective Siblings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-22
Updated: 2019-08-22
Packaged: 2020-09-23 20:08:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,127
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20345986
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cherubique/pseuds/cherubique
Summary: Alex struggles with reminders that summer storms whip up in Camena of what happened before and during the island trip, and Michael tries to put the fragments of her composure back together like he’s always done. He might not understand entirely, but Michael knows this: he's always been Alex's rock, and that isn't going to change anytime soon.





	in aeternum, sister

There are reminders of the island everywhere in Camena. Michael doesn’t understand it, of course he doesn’t- even his memories of life in the summer before are blurry, out of focus- waterlogged. They aren’t exactly rewritten, just selective. He remembers this. Woodsmoke and salt spray, half melted icecream cones and sticky sunscreen that was chalky white against his tan complexion- dark hair tousled lovingly by a gentle breeze. Mesh swimming trunks and brightly coloured plastic toys to dig into the sand with only half ironically, the sweet acridity of bug spray doused over the both of them. Toasted marshmallows goopily melting off of skewering sticks. Nothing amiss. 

Alex can’t find it in herself to explain, doesn’t know where to begin- _you died, and I went through tens-hundreds-thousands of loops to try to save you-_ it all slips through her fingers like trickling water, sunbeams caught refracted within: disorderly and jarringly bright. So she just buries her head into her hands and she weeps. Her shoulders are wracked with the weight of a single day stretched out into years. Michael hovers awkwardly, draping a blanket over her shoulders, pressing down as if he could keep the pieces of her composure together. His presence is solid, reassuring, even as his voice wavers softly.

_Is- is it the storm?_

A watery smile, eyes bleary and cheeks wet with tears cutting tracts down her face, Alex’s aqua blue hair sticks to her face with sweat. When she was a little girl, she’d run shrieking to his bedroom whenever the sky cracked open with peals of thunder and roiling lightning lighting it up bright purple, the white hot flashes enough illumination to see the far off shadowy masses of the woods. She’d almost fall over herself, fuzzy neon socks slip sliding down the hallways.

He’d always be there to catch her by the arms, before she crashed headlong into his stomach like a puppy trying and failing to turn the corner, knocking the wind out of him. Michael was always there. Sure, sometimes he had his hastily thrown on t-shirt turned the wrong way around, or forgot to drop the blanket from around himself onto the carpet and had to catch her with his arms enrobed like baby bat wings, but he was always standing in the doorway in anticipation for her. 

He’d groggily rummage around the room, rubbing sleep away from his eyes as he cobbled together a blanket fort, dragging the kitchen chairs in with a kerthunk-kerthunk-kerthunk as the legs banged against the wooden floorboards. Michael would say that the noise was scaring away any monsters that were lurking in the closet, or mice in the floorboards as she got older and her fears shifted to the more mundane. 

The fitted sheet he kept in his closet just for these occasions would be popped overtop, the overhanging edges adjusted just so. Enough to feel like a room inside of a room, but not enough to be claustrophobic. Michael would sit cross legged, a little hunched over because of the low ceiling, and play games with Alex in the morass of blankets and pillows. 

Shadow puppets, little bunnies and cats and dogs flitting against the sheet, lit up by a tiny penlight from his jangling keychain. Half remembered stories he stitched together and adjusted on the fly. Michael always cut out the scary parts of fairy tales and folk lore, leaving behind only the soft downiness of childhood wishes and whimsies, princesses with brave head of the guard knights defending them, armed to the teeth. He’d sing along to static washed songs on the small hand held radio he’d dug out of their basement one day, voices clipping in and out with the storms. They always left him singing clear through, even as they whined and shrieked out of existence as radio waves scrambled and dropped with poor reception.

She had generously, in so much as a six year old can be, shared a big round sticker of the sun to place on the rounded top of the main dial. Later she’d drawn big blotchy sunglasses on its face in a black sharpie he kept for labelling the inside of her jackets when she’d lose them after school, too intent on running around in the yard to remember to grab it or her lunch bag off of the hook after class. Alex had always been the first out of the classroom door, feet pounding across the asphalt in search of her brother who’d come to walk her home. 

Eleven years on, the sun’s ink was a little faded, with a small patch of yellowing packing tape overtop protecting it from being rubbed away to nothingness by oily fingertips and friction. It was still there though, and even now, after what feels like a lifetime of looping, the sun still smiles vacantly from the cupboards, a tiny beacon of her childhood before drowned ghosts and dead girls offered up in sadistic bargains. 

It didn’t matter what he had upcoming in the morning, he persisted in whatever silly activities he managed to scrounge up until she felt safe enough to fall asleep. Her eyes would flutter, lids weighed down by exhaustion, until eventually they remained shut-fast. Only then would Michael unfold his spine, joints aching a little at having been smushed into a too small fort for- hours, sometimes, and carefully lift Alex up to tuck her in for bed, making sure that the soft side of her blanket brushed against her cheek, just the way that she liked it. 

There’d been countless classes and practices he showed up for, yawning and covering his mouth politely as his pen scratched across the page or he wriggled into his jersey. She’d always felt bad about that. Alex always tried to sneak him some candy from her much guarded stash from Halloween-to-Halloween to perk him up with a sugar rush. 

He’d just ruffle her hair and thank her, smiling around the caramel, although she would always find just enough money in her filched red jacket pockets later that day when she turned them inside out before hanging them up on the hook to go and buy something from the local convenience store: a bag of gummy bears, some chocolate bars, fizzing pop rocks to tip back onto her tongue. 

She’d always split the spoils with him, the same way growing up he’d always carefully wrapped up classroom treats in paper napkins and Tupperware to cut in half with her. It wasn’t that he needed to. There was always plenty of treats at home- but Michael knew that it felt special to her, to be remembered and thought about during his day to day life. 

Michael always shrugged it off as not being able to finish the junk food himself. It got to be silly sometimes- when it came to things like two bite brownies. Any reasonable person, let alone a gangly growing teen boy could scoff it down and then some, but he stuck to his guns on the topic. So she let it lie where it was, because it made the both of them happy- and some things didn’t really have an easy way to broach them to dredge up in conversation anyways.

_Just the storm._

Michael tries his best to help, ever dutifully worried. He clears out the grocery store’s tea aisle, and at first, it helps- wrapping Alex’s shaking hands around a warm mug of tea. The flavours switch in and out, so that he always has something to talk to her about- _what do you think of the floral notes in this bag? Compared to last week’s? Yeah, I like green tea better than oolong, it’s not really my thing._

The tea is always warm, never hot, he doesn’t want her to burn herself. He always tests the temperature with the back of his pinky finger pressed against the ceramic mugs. It’s the same way that he warns her she should test to see if there’s a fire on the other side of a door in the event of a house disaster- with the back of her hand, it’s more sensitive, see? And so that her hands don’t seize up, muscles curled up in shock and melted fast to doorknobs or handles. So that they can dart away again if it is too warm, so she can regroup and regather her thoughts and try a different plan of attack. 

In her memories of the island, Alex can feel the thud of her worn out sneakers slamming overtop compacted earth as she runs away from the hot breath of the Sunken whispering in her ears, puffs of warmed insults skating across her bared neck and face as she tries to dart away, so she can regroup and regather, and try out a different approach. It’s a mockery of that elementary playground. She’s still looking for Michael. She does this again and again, until she can run it blind: eyes shut tight from the glaring neon red lights, hands grabbing hold of too tall ledges to haul herself up, knees bent and ready to spring upwards over fallen logs and tumbled boulders.

In some timeline loops, she does- keeps her eyes shut firmly, refusing to acknowledge the situation unravelling around her until she’s forced to- pinned down and held by the wrists, one nicotine stained set of fingers peeling back her eyelids when they’ve gotten bored of her playing these games, or a curve of red hair sticking her in the face as she’s slapped silly until she does open up.

Michael mixes in little life lessons -don’t use metal to take things out of the toaster, I always keep those takeout wooden chopsticks around for just that, always soak your dishes if you aren’t going to do them right away or you’ll be in for a hell of a ride when they harden rock solid, a little baking soda paste will take the itchiness away from a bug bite if you don’t have any insect balm on hand- throughout casual interactions. He’s trying to share what he knows with her, trying to prepare her for life without her older brother perpetually in the background, keeping an eye on things, warning her of disaster up ahead. His biggest worries are about college, for him and for her. Alex thinks- _if only he knew._

So Michael thinks he’s being helpful, when he brings her the new box of tea- sleepy time lavender. He swears by it himself, it always soothes him when his nerves are frayed raw by exams. Helps him drift off. She takes one look at the box and knocks it off of the table, hand slapping it open palmed before either of them can really acknowledge what she’s doing. It’s a reflex. There’s a brief pause, as he stares, eyebrows knitting together as he tries to figure out what to say. _Okay, we can go back to the decaf jasmine, that’s no biggie._ He bends down at the waist, picks up the box- and places it on the table again, the label turned the other way around as she bursts into tears. 

_ Sleepy time gal,_ is all Alex can think of- the Sunken’s mocking voices discordant and rasping, water bloated limbs scratching loose nails along chalkboards. The NATO phonetic alphabet is near traumatizing these days. Michael doesn’t know what to make of her distress. Still, he wraps her up in his arms like he did when she was seven and wailing over the storms rocking Camena. 

He doesn’t know, and won’t ever know how the storms on Edward’s island have replaced those childhood fears. 

After all, Alex had steadfastly shot down every attempt at getting the group together to go on another expedition as per Michael’s suggestion. He thought it was weird- but he didn’t push the topic. Even if his fragmented memories refused to be put back in order again, (if there even was such a thing as a proper order, given the non continuity of the night and his absence there in,) Michael knew when Alex was upset, and he didn’t ever want to contribute to that. 

Snot bubbles up and tears soak his raglan shirt all the way through, until both glue it to his skin uncomfortably. Michael shushes her gently, a hand against the back of her head, cupped against her hair. He makes a note to run a load of laundry later- the fitted sheet could do with a wash anyways. It’d be no trouble to chuck in the raglan with it. 

He doesn’t ask her any questions that she can’t give him the answers to. Michael simply holds Alex, as he always has. 

Just him being there is enough. 

Just him being there is everything.


End file.
